Heavy ones that didn’t belong to trick-or-treaters.
A low-pitched voice said, “Heller,” and when I turned, the nine-millimeter was in my hand.
Behind me I heard Helen scream, “Nate!”
“Helen, get inside!”
I heard the door close behind me.
Standing before me, maybe five feet away, were the two scariest night creatures Chicago could ever hope to conjure on this All Hallows’ Eve. One could only hope that these were two older high-school kids with a sick sense of humor and a big enough allowance to put on an incredible masquerade.
Either that, or I was facing Chuckie Nicoletti and Mad Sam DeStefano, the two most dangerous killers in Chicago. I could add,
Outfit
killers, but there were no non-Outfit killers to match them, unless maybe some young mad scientist was cooking up a batch of black plague in a basement lab in DeKalb or something.
Chuckie—at my left—was a big man, maybe six two, broad-shouldered and with hands so big they looked swollen, his features handsome but with an over-ripened look. In his late forties, he was sharply dressed—that was a tailored suit, dark enough to blend with the night, and the tie was silk, black-and-gray striped.
Chuckie Nicoletti, when he was twelve, killed his first man, his father; currently he was Sam Giancana’s killer of choice. The in-between you can fill in yourself.
His smile was faint, but genuinely amused, as he said, “You don’t need that rod, Heller. Put it away.”
What a ridiculous thing to call a gun! Didn’t he know this was 1963? Edward G. Robinson didn’t play gangsters any more, Bogart was dead, and this was real fucking life, where a guy ate and slept and sometimes even peed. Christ, I wished I didn’t have to pee so bad right now.
The man standing next to Chuckie must have thought calling my Browning a rod was funny, too, because he was giggling uncontrollably. Of course, his nickname was Mad Sam, so that might have something to do with it.
Maybe five ten and in his fifties, Mad Sam had an unruly head of dark graying hair, reminiscent of Larry in the Three Stooges; his close-set eyes, lumpy nose, and unhealed wound of a mouth gave him the look of a demented clown. He wore an off-the-rack black sport coat over a white shirt, a skinny loose noose of a red tie, baggy gray trousers, and what looked to be bedroom slippers.
Mad Sam DeStefano had not killed his own father. He had killed his own brother, in part to save his sibling from a life of drug addiction, in part because he’d been hired to kill him. A free agent, Mad Sam made his money off loan-sharking, doing his own enforcing
.
Still, he remained tight with Giancana and could be hired on for any job, as long as it required a sadistic maniac.
Right now Chuckie’s smile had turned kind of sideways and he held his oversize hands up chest-high, palms out, as if in surrender.
“This is a
friendly
call, Heller.”
“Is it?”
“Mr. Rosselli would like to see you.”
And he sent these two killers to tell me?
Mad Sam stopped giggling long enough to say, “You’re supposed to come wid us. We’re gonna drive you over so’s you and Johnny can talk.”
I wasn’t pointing the gun at them—I’d allowed it to drift down, but not quite at my side. I was still giving serious thought to just shooting them both.
Chuckie said, “Heller, you stand around on the sidewalk, pointing guns at people, somebody may call the cops.”
I said, “And that’s a bad thing? Anyway, this is my private walk and it’s only one gun.”
Mad Sam slapped Chuckie on the back and roared with laughter. “Tough talk, but look at his eyes! He’s gonna piss himself! I swear he’s gonna
piss
himself!”
So he was nuts
and
psychic.
Chuckie gestured slow and casual as he said, “That Lincoln over there? That sweet ride across the way? We’re just supposed to escort you over to Agostino’s, where Mr. Rosselli is waiting. To talk. Just to talk.”
Mad Sam snorted a laugh. “Wanna take your girlfriend along, Nate? That’s Sally Rand, ain’t it? Don’t look half bad for a broad her age. I bet Johnny would get a kick out of that.”
But Chuckie said, “No, Sam, we’re just collecting Heller, here. Sorry, Nate, this is a private conference. Better you come by yourself.”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You boys want to take me for a ride? And I’m just supposed to file my ‘rod’ away under asshole and come along?”
Mad Sam was giggling again. “Not
that
kinda ride, Heller! Jesus, you always crack me up! This guy has always cracked me up, Chuckie. Heller, if it was
that
kinda ride, would we still be standing here, shooting the shit?”
I
might be shooting
something
.…
“Fellas,” I said, raising the gun just a little, “generous as the offer is, I’m going to have to pass. I’m fine with seeing Mr. Rosselli tonight. Johnny and me are old pals. But I have my own wheels. You gents just take off, and I’ll be right behind you.”
Chuckie was frowning. “Nate, we’re supposed to bring you.”
“I’m not getting in a car with you two.”
Mad Sam’s grin was jack-o’-lantern worthy. “No?
You’re
telling
us
how this is going down?”
“I am,” I said. “I have the gun out. You guys are good, but you’ll both be dead and I won’t go to either funeral.”
Chuckie thought about that. Mad Sam’s smile had curdled somewhat; he thought he was still amused, but just wasn’t quite sure.
“You have my word,” Chuckie said quietly. “This is just a chauffeur job.”
“No,” I said. “Make your play, or get the fuck out.”
Now Mad Sam wasn’t smiling. Not at all.
“Why won’t you let us
drive
you?” he demanded. “We got
paid
to drive you!”
“Sam! I’m not getting in a car with you and Chuckie.”
“Why? Chuckie give you his word! I’ll give
my
word! You’re gonna make us look
bad
, Heller. I don’t
like
looking bad.”
“I don’t like looking dead. As for why I won’t get in a car with you? Because Chuckie here watched Spilotro crush a guy’s head in a vise till the bastard’s eyes popped out onto the floor, and didn’t miss a beat eating his pasta. And you, Sam? You hung Action Jackson on a meat hook and gave him the cattle-prod treatment until you decided to get really rough with him.”
Mad Sam was giggling again. “These stories you hear, Heller. They’re just so much exaggerated horseshit.”
“Well, I don’t wanna be a story, Sam. Chuckie, I’ll follow you in my Jag. You fellas go into the restaurant first, and I’ll trail in, and Johnny will never know I drove myself. No loss of face and no loss of income.”
Chuckie thought about that.
Finally he said, “All right, Heller. We’ll shake on it.”
He extended his hand.
I grinned at him. “Maybe later.”
I watched them go, Mad Sam shaking his head and chattering, Chuckie just plowing through the night like a ship’s prow, heading for the parked Lincoln.
When the car was gone, I went into the lower apartment.
Helen threw a barrage of questions at me, but all I said was, “If I’m not back in two hours, call Dick Cain. His home number’s in my book upstairs. Tell him I went to Agostino’s to see Rosselli. Got that? Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to piss like a racehorse.”
* * *
Agostino’s was on the corner where Rush and State Streets converged. The restaurant’s vertical neon-lettered sign and striped canopy were all that dressed up a drab old building. The Sciacqua brothers, Gus and Andy, ran the place, and I was a regular, so Johnny Rosselli had accidentally stumbled onto comfortable turf. Maybe somebody told him about the spaghetti with anchovy sauce.
I parked the Jag under a streetlamp on busy Rush, and walked about a block to the corner building that had been a drugstore with a blind pig over it, when I first started on the PD.
Chuckie and Mad Sam were pacing around to one side of the canopied entry, looking like the least-welcoming doormen in history, Sam in particular. Chuckie was smoking a cigarette, looking annoyed—probably as much with himself as me—and was probably about two minutes away from climbing back in that Lincoln and really coming after me when I strolled up.
Though it was fairly cool, I’d left the raincoat home, and my suit coat hung open for easy access to the Browning. I’d worn a feathered Dobbs hat and looked jaunty.
“Hi fellas,” I said. “May I make a suggestion?”
Mad Sam goggled at me, rocking forward on his feet. He was three feet from me but I could smell his rancid breath. “May
I
make a suggestion, Heller? That you should go fuck yourself?”
“You took your time,” Chuckie observed.
“I had to go in and pee,” I said, “before coming over here. What can I say? You guys are scary.”
Chuckie actually liked that remark. He had a decent sense of humor. Unlike Sam, whose idea of humor was to tie you naked to a hot radiator.
Chuckie said, “What’s your suggestion?”
“We go in together. You peel off into the bar, and I’ll head into the dining room. That’s where John is, right? That back corner booth?”
Chuckie nodded, approving the plan.
We went in, and the two killers joined the revelry in the jammed, lively bar, where the Venta brothers strolled with guitar and mandolin, as on every night. Gus was circulating, too, and waved to me from in there. I waved back.
Good,
I thought. I’d been seen. Noticed.
The dining room, which wasn’t large, had maybe half of its twenty tables and booths filled. The decor was only lightly touched with Italian imagery, a wall mural here, some plastic vines there, a simple space with subdued lighting. I just nodded at the maitre d’ as I headed for the corner booth.
Johnny Rosselli was by himself in the burgundy button-tufted booth. As always, he looked movie-star handsome, or anyway Hollywood producer handsome, with his perfect silver-gray hair and that deep tan that made his blue-gray eyes stand out and the ivory grin so dazzling. His gray Ivy-League suit was perfectly matched to a shirt of lighter gray and a narrow tie as silver as his hair.
“Nate, I’m so glad you could make it,” he said, and gestured for me to join him in the booth.
We arranged ourselves so that we were sitting opposite. He had no food, just a glass of what I knew was Smirnoff on the rocks—he drank nothing else.
“Haven’t ordered yet,” he said genially. “Wanted to wait for you. You’ve been here before, right?”
“Many times. But I’m eating later with a lady friend. Don’t want to spoil that.”
“No, no, wouldn’t want to do that.”
“But you go ahead and order.”
With a diamond-bedecked hand, he waved over a red-jacketed waiter, politely let me make my drink request first—I got the rum cooler—and ordered one of the house specialties, chicken cacciatore.
“Thanks for seeing me at such short notice,” he said. “I hope I didn’t interfere with what you got planned tonight for you and your lady friend. Is it true you’ve got Sally Rand bunking in with you?”
I nodded.
“That impresses an old goombah like me. But don’t you usually go for the younger dolls?”
All the hoods talked Rat Pack these days.
“Sally and me are friends going way back,” I said. “World’s Fair days.”
“Thirty years ago! Would you believe it? Anyway, thanks for coming.”
“How could I resist when you send such charming emissaries?”
He smile was minuscule. “What do you mean, Nate?”
The waiter brought my rum cooler—ice, lime juice, rum, Coca-Cola in a highball glass. Agostino’s did not stint on the rum, and I would be sure to have only one. I needed my wits about me, if I didn’t want them in my lap.
Softly I said, “I mean Nicoletti and DeStefano.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“So I get the message.”
He sipped Smirnoff. “I just sent a couple of the fellas over to give you a lift, is all.”
“The two most ruthless killers in town, is all, the top whack guy and the biggest whack job. Both as well known for torturing people as for putting them out of their misery.”
He smiled, displaying no teeth, just puckish amusement. “All right. So it
was
a message of sorts.”
“A warning. That you could send those two animals again, and not just for chauffeur service. I almost shot the bastards, John. They won’t tell you, but I had the drop on them for five fucking minutes while Nicoletti played nice.”
Now the toothsome dazzler of a smile came out. “I’ll bet Sam didn’t.”
“No, he just giggled like a schoolgirl. A cop told me that’s what he did when they questioned him about murdering his brother. Nice crowd you run with, John.”
A tiny shrug of shoulders almost as broad as Nicoletti’s. “We swim in dangerous waters, Nate, you know that. Sometimes it pays to bring your own sharks along. Trained ones. You know, domesticated.”
“DeStefano is about as domesticated as a rabid mountain lion. So, you can probably have me killed if you feel like it. Okay. That’s the threat. What’s the point?”
He called the waiter over and ordered up another Smirnoff. I was still nursing the rum cooler.
“You ran into Jack Ruby the other night,” Rosselli said.
Did he mean at the 606 Club? Or the Silver Frolics? I couldn’t be sure.
So I said, “You mean, at that strip joint.”
“Yeah. Man, I hope that Wilson character don’t close it down. The Frolics is the only decent tits-and-ass palace in Chicago, should you want to take some business associate somewhere classy.”
Okay. So he was referring to my more recent conversation with Ruby.
His eyebrows raised and his voice took on an avuncular tone. “Nate, you got kind of rough with him, I hear.”
“I slapped him a couple times, but only after he threw a punch at me. Why, is he a friend of yours?”
That could have been taken two ways: a made Cosa Nostra guy; or … a friend.
“He’s one of our boys,” Rosselli said, with a flip of the other diamond-heavy hand. “Small fry, not even a soldier, just a … what do the spooks say? Asset.”